As is known, the pusher-side equipment for battery-type by-product coke ovens travels along a track extending parallel to one side of the coke oven battery and includes a pusher for discharging coke from an oven chamber, a leveler, and a door extractor. The door extractor removes and holds the pusher-side coke oven door during a pushing operation. The leveler is adapted to be inserted through a leveling door at the top of each main coke oven door and acts to level the coal within the oven after it is charged from a larry car which travels above the coke oven chambers. Also carried on the pusher-side equipment is apparatus for cleaning the sealing surfaces on the coke oven doors, the leveling doors and the frames against which they abut when closed.
The present invention relates to means for cleaning the sealing surfaces of the leveling doors and leveling door frames through which the leveling element is adapted to extend. Deposits and other unwanted matter unavoidably form on the sealing surfaces of such leveling doors and leveling door frames. These deposits impair the sealing effectiveness of the coking chamber and must, therefore, be periodically removed. In the past, mechanical cleaners have been used for this purpose; however they are very elaborate and increase the overall length of the pusher-side equipment. This is for the reason that in a conventional coke-pushing machine, the distance between the leveling rod, which extends through a leveling door frame, is normally spaced ten oven chambers from the mechanical cleaner. The conventional system also requires that a second leveling door opener be installed. Finally, a disadvantage of conventional systems of the type described above is that high forces must be exerted on the mechanical cleaners to clean the sealing surfaces satisfactorily, with the result that such cleaners are subject to relatively heavy wear.
In the past, the doors and door frames of coking oven chambers have been cleaned with the use of water jets sprayed on the sealing surfaces from nozzles. An example of a system of this type is disclosed in German Patent Specification No. 2,143,595. However, since the main coke oven doors are removed and in the open position when the cleaning operation takes place with all of the sealing surfaces freely accessible, the circumstances are not the same as they are for the leveling doors which are not removed and are normally mounted on hinges.